[dalbasal]

Diets seriously need to be considered through the lens of Occam's razor.

First, radical dietary changes cause rapid fluctuations in weight regularly. Not fat, weight.

Second, if you eat only one thing or are generally restrictive... You will probably lose a lot of appetite.

It's no good going off on some theory about pottasium. Occam's razor suggests that this also works for the been soup diet, fruit diet, etc.

It is, potentially, useful to do these kinds of things as an isolation diet (gradually add back foods and pay attention to effects). It's also useful to just break bad habits by doing weird stuff sometimes.

I'm Irish. I love potatoes. They do not have magic dietary powers. The potato doesn't explain anything. You can get similar results with toast, bacon or bananas. The results do not mean anything specific for longer term fat loss, health, etc.

It just proves that bodyweight fluctuates in response to radical diet change. That is known.

Same for a lot of the "water tricks" that thankfully have started to die down. They use bodybuilder tricks to eventually dehydrate themselves for a perfect look on stage day. It's sold as a weight loss trick.

[tomxor]

> You will probably lose a lot of appetite

This, probably almost any natural food that is not too sweet will work.

Overeating manufactured "food" devoid of nutrition, pumped full of sugar and refined carbs has become the default in the western diet... That a potato-only diet is an improvement highlights just how bad it has become.

[dalbasal]

Even ice cream or French fries have a decent shot at working.

[pr0zac]

Over a decade ago a dude proved you can lose weight eating mostly twinkies if the calorie math works. I don't think theres any food it wouldn't work with. https://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor...

[francisofascii]

> They do not have magic dietary powers.

Depends on what diet you compare them to. If you could demonstrate people could live healthy lives on just potatoes compared to a normal Western diet, that seems like a significant finding. I don't think toast or bacon would give you the array of vitamins/nutritional value. What other foods would beat out potatoes? Beets maybe? I have also heard some dietitians questioning the "eat the rainbow" recommendation, and that having less food diversity is actually better. I am not suggesting limiting yourself to one food is ideal, but maybe limiting to just a few types foods is, depending on your genetics.

[dalbasal]

>Depends on what diet you compare them to. If you could demonstrate people could live healthy lives on just potatoes compared to a normal Western diet.

People (academic even) "demonstrate" this all the time. All meat diet. Vegan diet. Raw diet. One meal per day. The potatoes and lemons diet. Etc.

Feed most overweight western adults a restrictive diet, their health is likely to improve dramatically. That's because it's restrictive. Not because of what it is restricted to.

If you have >15kg of excess fat, you are probably reslient to undernourishment. The fat loss, lower blood sugar and such will improve your health.

Btw, in 19th century ireland, poorhouses published guidelines for the all potato diet. Their clients were undernourished. Their guidelines based on observing individuals who would deteriorate quickly if the diet was insufficient.

Their dietary minimum was 3-4kg of potatoes + 1 pint of milk or one portion of sardines or mackerel. You need to eat a lot of potatoes to make this diet sustainable.

A modern Irish man is much heavier, and much, much fatter than our great grandfathers. We also do less physical work. In that context, we can survive just fine on a lot of insufficient diets for a very long time.